


Witness

by Imperium



Category: Marvel (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Angst, Bingo Prompt: PTSD, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, TW: Prison, TW: Rats, TW: Solitary Confinement, tw: unhealthy relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-24 04:15:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21093233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imperium/pseuds/Imperium
Summary: It’s easier to talk to Tony like this, easier to not have to worry about judgment, wonder if the ever-present faith in Tony’s eyes would recede somewhere quiet and distant. It’s shameful. This hope for comfort. This,- this pitifulwantto feel needed and loved.





	Witness

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in the ambiguous time where Tony just woke up from his coma and Steve is fresh out of prison.

Tony is curled up, a warm pliant weight on Steve’s chest, his legs brushing against the insides of Steve’s own.

“They don’t trust me,” he mumbles into Tony’s hair, like he’s still a soldier and faith is something he can ask for. Tony moves, bruised arms brushing over Steve’s own aching ones. He doesn’t look up.

Steve is grateful. It’s easier to talk to Tony like this, easier to not have to worry about judgment, wonder if the ever-present faith in Tony’s eyes would recede somewhere quiet and distant. It’s shameful. This hope for comfort. This,- this pitiful _ want _to feel needed and loved.

“_ No one _ trusts me.” he can’t quite suppress the pathetic sniff. He rubs his nose on his shoulder. Tony’s hand on his waist tightens.

“_ I _trust you,” he whispers. His breath blows hot over Steve’s bare nipple. He says it like it's of any actual consolation, like Tony’s own faith would make up for all that he’s lost. The towering self-assurance of it all makes Steve shift; uncomfortable.

“You didn’t always.” as soon as the words crawl their cheap snivelling way out of his throat, he wishes he could take them back. It’s a bitter, petty thing. They’d both suffered way too much to return to this kind of talk. But cruelty was the only language they spoke - and health was something easily disregarded. In a balance of scales, Steve has no ground. 

“I didn’t always,” Tony agrees, easily enough. There is an undercurrent of guilt in his tone, but no regrets. Steve wants to hate him for that. He tightens the arm-thrown over Tony’s waist instead, slides his palm down the slope of Tony’s back, skirting the inside of Tony’s sweaty thighs. It's almost whimsical, an opportunity to hold Tony in his arms again. More for the fact that he won't get to do it for long. He lets his nails catch at the parts where he knows Tony is most sensitive, up to spread his cheeks open to the dark air, and slide a digit in where Tony is swollen and dribbling over Steve’s fingers. He scoops some out. Plays his obscenely large fingers over Tony’s readily available body, rubbing his spend into Tony’s skin.

Tony lets him have his play. Eyes shut, luxuriating in Steve. When Steve gets bored, he splays his hand over his rear, wide along the width of it, and Tony turns over to set his chin on Steve’s chest looking at him with earnest blue eyes, “We’re here now, Steve.” he says, like the towering ridicule of their lives could _ ever _be done with, “it’s over.” he murmurs, hanging his head.

Over a decade of companionship and Steve’s finally learned one of Tony’s tells.

Steve sets a palm over his nape, turning his head to rest on Steve’s chest again. He can’t bear to look at Tony sometimes.

Tony brushes a kiss over Steve’s heart.

“Do you want to,-” he begins, tentative dread in his voice.

Steve shakes his head. Burdening Tony was fruitless. He'd appreciate a talk: but not about this. Not with Tony who loved Steve with an abandon bordering on obsessed worship. He can't talk to Tony, especially with something like this.

It's crass, and _ demeaning_: a sham of a faith that they both pretended they still had in each other. Like this, he shamefully wishes Tony were more like Sharon. Sharon who understood the ideals that dominated Steve’s life better than anyone else.

It’s an ugly, guilty thought, more befitting the Hydra Supreme than the Captain.

It's an unfair assessment.

Tony would know. He would understand. Tony was always ready to help. Even with his skin coming apart at the seams with the effort of it. He should be able to help Steve. But,- Tony, he was still naïve. Optimistic in a way only someone living atop a castle could be, and trust was a hard earned commodity,- the one thing Tony had never been able to successfully sell. 

He couldn’t even market it right.

But an explanation would mean arguments, and Steve is so very tired of fighting with Tony.

“I don’t want to talk about prison,” he says, mostly to break the awkward silence.

“We can,-” Tony offers, aborted. “We _ can _,- if you want.”

Steve thinks there was once a happier time when he and Tony could speak their minds and not cover in fear of the other’s thoughts.

_ Was it jealousy that brought us here old friend? Or was it love? _

Steve is being merciful to them both when he ignores the pitiful offer.

He strokes the down of Tony’s hair. It’s fluffy, _ soft _. The conditioner smells like something Steve should be selling his body for. Maybe he would have.

Rules didn’t apply in hell, anymore than honor or self-respect did.

The worst part, Steve thinks - would always be the smell, lingering at the tip of his nose. Not the fluorescent disgusting lights. Not the skittering of the rats. Not the screams of whichever poor schmuck who’d been dissected for all of them to bear witness.

It was the smell. Rotten, like old blood in a surgical suite not cleaned up. Just overlapped with bleach, maybe paint; if the smell sunk in too deep. The stench of rats and their wet fur, gnawing over the soft insides of Steve’s bare feet. Climbing over his body and sloping over his skin as Steve attempted to sleep.

Steve had curled his hands around his head, his eyes, ears, _ covering _, lips pressed tightly together. His elbows bruised and raw against the concrete.

In there, he’d forced himself to think happier thoughts.

To think of Sharon. Her soft lovely blonde hair, and the way she smiled, the way she’d rest her head against his shoulder, the curve of her waist fitting into Steve’s palm. The way she’d hold his hand in a grip almost as strong as his own.

Every now and then, he’d dreamt of Tony. Dreamt of standing with him on the roof, as the wind whipped the hair off his face, and if it was an especially lucky day, the light would cast Tony’s face in shadow. Steve would crack a joke no one would find funny, and Tony would laugh, laugh like it was the greatest thing he’d ever heard- his eyes crinkling, sassing back; _ Didn’t take you for such a joker Winghead - maybe you should join me in the next Gala. We could all use some quality entertainment. _

It was Tony's non-subtle way of asking Steve out. Steve would politely ignore it.

Besides, he attended most of them elite events with Tony, anyway.

He buries his face in Tony’s hair pulling him up his body. Tony scrambles but settles.

“Trust will come with time,” he says, his fingers smoothing over Steve’s chest. “It might take a while,-”

“How long?” Steve cuts him off. “How long did it take for people to trust you after Registration?” Tony stiffens, trying to pull away. “I’ll tell you,” Steve hisses, pulling Tony back to his chest. He should stop, this was vindictive - there was heartfelt cruelty to this that Steve didn’t want to touch. But Tony mutters something and Steve wants him to wound, to _ ache _as he did. “Never,” he whispers against Tony’s hair. “They still don’t trust you.” he knows how unnecessary this is, the casual savagery of it all.

“Do _ you _?” Tony wonders so quietly - a muffled mumble swept away in the silence of the room. Steve wonders if he even realized he’d said it out loud.

Steve doesn’t answer. But he slopes his hand down Tony’s spine. Steve had kept Tony safe, Steve had protected Tony after the war. Despite everything.

Tony had left Steve behind to rot. It shouldn’t be such a horrid awful thing. The thought of Tony in a place like the Myrmidon made him feel cold all over. Like he could never be happy again.

He wants Tony to suffer. But he doesn’t want him to hurt.

Steve drags his heavy hand up Tony’s body to sink into his hair again. He’s letting it grow out, like how he’d had it in the nineties, brushed back with a few flecks of strategic strands on his forehead. It’s adorable,- _ endearing._

Steve shifts, letting Tony’s head loll over his shoulder, back before settling over his chest.

_ ‘Apologize’ _his brain begs.

Tony’s tear is hot and wet when it lands on Steve’s chest. He quickly wipes it away, but the damage is done.

_ Now you’ve gone and made him cry. _

He can’t quite make his mind up if Tony crying is the most beautiful thing in the world, or the most embarrassing.

He heaves a sigh. Tony shifts and moves with it on Steve’s chest. “I’m sorry,” Steve offers weakly.

Tony nods. “It’s okay.” he says like he’s ready to shoulder the burden of Steve’s cruelty for him, he wipes his face again, with his tender wrist, the bottom of his lip still caught in a painful swell, “It’s okay,” he repeats.

Steve lets his eyes roll incredulously to look down at Tony's vague silhouette in the dark room. Tears didn’t speak much for a general stage of ‘rightness’ but then again,- he wishes he could take a moment to cry like Tony so often did. Did it make anything easier?

He tries to force some out, holds his eyes open boring into the ceiling until they go dry. They don’t come to him. It must be easier for professional actors, he muses.

He presses a kiss to Tony’s forehead. Tony curls into it, body loosening, “You’ll earn it back soldier,” he promises, all faith and no hope.

Steve nods “I’ll earn it back,” he repeats.

Steve wishes he were at all capable of believing anything that Tony said anymore.

  
  



End file.
